Milan Fashion Week Spring 2018 has been a show full of surprises! To mark the 20th anniversary of Gianni Versace’s murder, his sister, Donatella had for the first time, worked with her brother’s archives,revisiting prints and pieces from some of his most celebrated collections, adding a few star supermodels – Cindy Crawford, Helena Christensen, Naomi Campbell; Angela Missoni was also marking a 20th anniversary, where she used one archive print, a jacquard from late 80’s that depicted masks and faces, and it was also the first time she had mixed men’s and women’s clothing, a trend so many brands have adopted… This is just the top of the highlights we might have missed, and we want to remind you today!

Versace

Firstly, the Dolce & Gabbana invite – collectible to awaiting fans outside, there to catch a glimpse of the millennial pin-ups the duo have so managed to commandeer as ambassadors – was an oversized playing card, a beautiful incarnation Dolce-style.

The set had revolving cards at its end – actually surprisingly low-key for the brand who has been cornering the market in Insta fodder these past few seasons. So, for a change, it was a chance to take in the clothes. It was like bring Alice in Wonderland back for bulbous puffball gowns that held themselves into shape because they were “constructed” from embellished playing cards and took their cue from the kind of outfit the Queen of Hearts herself would wear. It was fantasy and fairytale…an amusement for your eyes!

Giorgio Armani

Roberto Cavalli

Fendi

For Milan Fashion Week Spring 2018, there were a handful of designers opting for open air venues. Marco de Vincenzo went historical, taking us to the 15th-century Castello Sforzesco, while the Jil Sander newcomers Lucie and Luke Meier looked to the future, choosing a soon-to-open mall near the newly built Zaha Hadid tower.

Salvatore Ferragamo

Missoni

Missoni

Besides Meiers at Jil Sander debut, also Paul Surridge at Roberto Cavalli introduced a thoughtful collection that showed promise. And it was a week of anniversaries, too. Nowhere is that more explicit than at Gucci, where Alessandro Michele commissioned a set of ersatz relics that spanned centuries and continents, and mined different, disparate fashion eras to create a psychedelic parade of Elton John glitter, haberdashery, eastern influences, and Bugs Bunny. Then Michele went and showed it all in the dark, compounding its hallucinogenic effect. The guy is on his own trip.

Gucci

Gucci

Salvatore Ferragamo

The second trend in play is designers’ increasing belief in the elevating power of art. See the engaged and enraged Prada collection in which Miuccia used the work of eight female comic artists as accents on her sharp tailoring, amplifying its collectability factor and her feminist message.